Tag: drag

As part of Motor Trend‘s Best Driver’s Car competition, the buff book has held its third iteration of the World’s Greatest Drag Race. With an airfield and a dozen of the world’s finest performance cars at its disposal (oh, and a helicopter), the MT team did what any good group of enthusiasts would do, and tried to figure what car could cover a quarter mile the quickest. World’s greatest drag race, indeed.

The contestants, as MT points out, cover a huge variety of engine types, drivelines, aspiration types and body styles, making for a genuinely varied and interesting field of competitors. Here’s the full list of cars taking part.

Quite a lineup. The group includes one previous winner, the Nissan GT-R, which took the original World’s Greatest Drag Race, before being unseated by the Lamborghini Aventador last year. Let us know who your pick is to win in Comments, and then scroll down to watch the full video from Motor Trend.

Continue reading Motor Trend holds World’s Greatest Drag Race for the third time

Motor Trend holds World’s Greatest Drag Race for the third time originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 23 Aug 2013 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Ford Mustang is a brilliantly affordable source of horsepower, with a base 300-plus-horsepower version available for well under $30,000. Jumping up to about $35,000 will get you a solid 420 horsepower from a high-revving V8, while those with some extra disposable income can get a pair of 600-plus-horsepower monsters. Both the Roush Stage 3 with its Phase 3 package and Ford’s factory Shelby GT500 even crest the 650-horsepower mark, with 675 and 662 ponies, respectively.

Naturally, someone needed to find out which of these hi-po Mustangs was the quickest. And while this video is quite obviously a dealership commercial, at least there’s some solid drag racing between two of the most powerful performance machines available for under $100,000.

With two NHRA drag racers at the wheel, the Stage 3 and GT500 go head to head for three races. Scroll down below to see the results in the full video.

Continue reading Shelby GT500 and Roush Stage 3 go head to head at the drag strip

Shelby GT500 and Roush Stage 3 go head to head at the drag strip originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 07 Aug 2013 12:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Okay, so we may not be talking about a classic, all-conquering Nissan Skyline GT-R here. But the sub-Godzilla-trim Nissan Skyline GTS-T is still a car, after all. And, as a car, if someone asked you to lay a bet on it versus a mobility scooter (Hoveround, Rascal, you know the type) in a drag race, you’d probably take that action.

Unless, of course, that drag race were happening on YouTube, in which case you’d put your money away and open up your laptop. On the Internet it’s best to never bet against the wild underdog.

We don’t mean to spoil the following video for you, but come on. When you saw Skyline vs. Scooter in that headline, you had a pretty good idea of what was to come, didn’t you. Needless to say, mobility scooters fitted with Suzuki GSX-600F engines are pretty quick. Strap in and scroll down.

Historically, the intersection between electric vehicles and drag racing has been really small – or so we guess, at least. But the advent of Tesla in the auto marketplace, and the subsequent performance offered up to drivers by way of battery-powered cars, has caused even racy publications like DragTimes to get in on the action.

Having posted several YouTube videos featuring the Tesla Model S doing pulls at the local strip, DragTimes encountered questions about just how many races that car might be able to run before needing to re-juice its battery pack. The publication monitored the energy being used by the Tesla during full-throttle, quarter-mile runs, and determined that the net use (after energy from the regen braking was added back in) amounted to just 0.5 kWh per go. Considering that the full battery capacity is 85 kWh, DragTimes figured that the Model S is good for a remarkable 170 races before needing a recharge. By that math, and using electricity costs in DragTime‘s home state of Florida, each race would cost just a nickel and a penny’s worth of electricity.

With respect, that theoretical number is probably way too high. For starters, the car would expend some energy getting to and from the starting line between races. Perhaps more critically, the system is designed to not allow for a completely full charge or deletion of charge, so the car can’t use all 85 kWh. Still, 100 runs is in the realm of possibility. In the video below, the narrator makes mention of 150 runs, which is optimistic but more likely. Cheap thrills, in any case (once you’ve paid for the car).

The Mopar Dodge Challenger V10 Drag Pak debuted just shy of a month ago and has already stormed its way into the NHRA record books. Driver Dave Thomas laid down a 9.43-second pass at 143.90 mph at a test session April 7, simultaneously setting the elapsed time and mile-per-hour records for the AA/SA class.

Thomas’ record is all the more impressive when you consider that he made his first-ever passes in the car the Sunday before the record run. With capabilities in the nine-second range almost as soon as it comes out of the box, we expect there are quicker times to be pulled out of the only V10-powered factory dragster.

As a refresher, the V10 Drag Pak carries a slightly modified version of the 500 cubic-inch mill from the Viper mated to a two-speed race-only transmission and a Mopar solid-axle rear end. The car comes ready to race, with an NHRA-approved roll cage, fuel system and racing wheels and tires. Full press release after the jump.

In recent years, Ford and Dodge have produced limited-edition, drag-race-only models built to compete in various NHRA classes. Both automakers have amped up their programs for 2011, with Ford releasing the revised Mustang Cobra Jet and Dodge unveiling its V10-powered Challenger Drag Pak at SEMA last November.

Will Chevrolet join the party? While General Motors hasn’t hinted that it will, its competition at Ford Racing appears to know otherwise. In an interview regarding the Cobra Jet, Ford Racing’s drag racing competition manager, Jesse Kershaw, hinted at a new Camaro built for drag racing:

“Some people revel in competition and some people don’t like the competition, but what is really interesting is that we’re seeing a resurgence of the muscle car wars from the late ’60s. So we see where the competition like Dodge has produced a Challenger to compete with us, and now they’ve had to step up their ante with a V10 version. We know that General Motors is on track to release a Camaro version. I think that the NHRA fans as well as the racers themselves are very excited to get out there and have this new era of horsepower war.”

Both Ford and Dodge unveiled their purpose-built drag racers at SEMA, so we’ll have our eyes and ears open for any potential news from GM come November.

Gallery: Review: 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS

Photos copyright (C)2011 Drew Phillips / AOL

[Source: Ford Racing TV]

Chevrolet to take on Mustang Cobra Jet and Challenger Drag Pak with race-only Camaro? originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 02 Apr 2011 10:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ferrari 458 Italia versus Shelby Cobra with $400K on the line – Click above to watch video after the jump

Take a moment and pretend you’re a wealthy man or woman. (If you’re already wealthy, take a moment to enjoy the warm green glow from your money… otherwise, time to get back to pretending.) Would you rather spend your money on a modern Italian sportscar or a classic American muscle car?

Let’s say you pick one and your wealthy friend picks the other… you’d probably want to take both to the track and see who bought the faster machine, right? That’s just what the two folks in the following video do with a Ferrari 458 Italia and Shelby Cobra.

Not content with a basic Gentleman’s Bet, the duo decide to put serious cash on the line. The winner of the race gets $400,000. The clip, which you can see after the jump, is just a teaser, but the full video is promised soon. Which car is going to make that quarter-mile trip in less time and have its owner walk away $400,000 richer, the Cobra or the Ferrari? Sound off in the comments.

General Motors and Chrysler have informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that cars sold to rental companies aren’t getting repairs done on recall for months at a time. NHTSA then started monitoring three million units from the two manufacturers in rental fleets to see how long they went unrepaired.

One month after a recall, NHTSA says that between 10 and 30 percent of cars had been repaired. By 90 days, the average was just 30 percent. According to the administration, it takes a year or more for rental companies to get more than 50 percent of their cars repaired.

According to The Detroit News, there aren’t any laws on the books that say a rental company has to get a car repaired before it rents it to a customer. What’s more, hundreds of recall notices go out a year, and rental cars move around a lot, making it difficult to nail them down for repairs.

According to Bob Barton, president of the American Car Rental Association, most companies place a hold on models that have been recalled, preventing them from being rented until repairs are made. The hitch, according to Barton, is that it can take months for the company to realize a recall has been issued.

NHTSA says its investigation is ongoing, and the administration noted a statement that dealerships aren’t allowed to sell a recalled vehicle until repairs have been made. That said, NHTSA also doesn’t have the authority to legally require that customers – including rental companies – have recall repairs made.